Machjo

Are you sure about that? I'd gone to 3 elementary schools in my life (1 Ontario French-Catholic, 1 Ontario French-secular, and 1 BC French secular), and I can't remember listening to the anthem except at Assemblies. So it would seem his school was already more devoted to the Anthem than most.

It came from religious parents, so I doubt 'God' was the issue, unless my guess that the parents were JWs (though this is only my guess by the sounds of it), then you might be right since some of them take offense at the word 'God' insisting it's Jehovah. Now the situation there was a grey area. The Ministry of Education certainly didn't fire him so it would suggest that his response was appropriate, or at least that the Ministry approves it. Of course sometimes there could be wiggle room in the law, and within that space, we should respect whatever decision the principal makes. I think we can all agree that his decision was well within that grey interpretation fo the law, even if a few other interpretations could have been within it too. And again, remember that he was already going above and beyond the call of duty as it was since it was the school and not the Ministry that was mandating daily singing of the Anthem to begin with. I was not saying that all supported of the Anthem are like this, but rather ponting out that our country is, generally speaking and exceptions aside, moving increasingly towards a fanatical level of uncritically accepted nationalism. I never said all are like that, but merely that it seems to be moving slowly in that direction. After all, 1000+ e-mails directed towards one person, all either harassing or threatening, along with one parent threatening him in person in his office, shows a serious problem in the direction our society is moving in, and that is definitely something we need to address in our society, making people understand that the Anthem represents a love for our country and its people, not a fanatical hatred for anything perceived to be an enemy. I'm not opposing the singing of the Anthem here, but rather a gross misunderstanding on the part of some nationalists of what it's supposed to stand for.

By the way, on the issue of the seriousness of the harassment and threats, though granted it's not as serious as the taliban, he did have to miss a week of work and had to see a therapist over the constant bombardment from all sides. So whatever happened, it appears the level and intensity fo the threats was quite high. In fact, he has to leave that elementary school and will work as a high school teacher this coming fall. So it was pretty serious. The good news of course is that one parents has been charged with six months imprisonment and supposedly more charges are pending. Grranted at least our court system is intact to at least mitigate against the worst.

OK, I'm exaggerating, but the idea still stands. The day we sing the national Anthem out of fear for our safety will be the beginnig of the end of our country as we know it.

So what would you have advised he'd done in his position? Since the daily singing of the Anthem in the classroom was a choice the school made and not something mandated by the Minsitry of Education (though it did just change that last week and now has mandated it across the province in response to the situation), yet the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms do fefend freedom of religion, what legal grounds would he have had to stand on had he pushed the matter with the parents who wanted their children exempted? It's not like he could say at the time that the school was mandated by the province to do this, and it was clearly a decision made by the Principal. That being the case, he would have had no ground to stand on legally and so really had no choice but to roll it back. Or would it have been preferable tohave made a court case out of it and instead maybe have those paents receive the death threats instead of him? Honestly, I admire his response so far. in the face of all the harassment and threats to his safety, he has always taken the safety of the parents who'd requested the exempltion into account by never revealing their identity, at least in the media, so as to divert the attention from himself. He could easily have deflected the threats from himself to the parents, but chose to do his job instead. Now that's a much more patriotic act than any committed by the pro-Anthem side harassing and threatening him. Taliban=style terrorism in the name of the Anthem is not a patriotic act.

So that excuses death threats? So are we to expect the judged who'd sentenced a parent to six months in jail for having gone to the principal's office to threaten him to now be threatened in his turn? Is mob rule the rule of the land now?

I agree with that last sentense except for one point. It wasn't so much a different idea on the part of the principal (had no parent complained, he would have had no intention of changing the daily classroom routine.) It had to do rather with critical problem solving skills on his part, which involved analysing the parents' complaints, the root of those complaints, the offical rules by which he had to abide, and developing a plan that could best synthesize the needs of the parents within the legal constraints within which he had to operate. Within those constraints, I would likely have made the same decision he had made. Now I also acknowledge that he'd missed one critical factor in his analysis of the situation, and one I had overlooked too until the dung hit the fan: fanaticism on the part of other parents. Honestly, I would have made the same mystake, having assumed parents couldn't be so cruel. Now looking back on it, I realise he could have handled it a different way. He could have first consulted with all the parents in the school, explaining the problem, and consulting on a solution all could accept. But then again, that might not have been a good idea either, considering that as a school principal, he should be responsible for the safety of those parents under such dangerous circumstances. An alternative soluton could have been to consult with all the parents without mentioning who made the initial complaint (though that could still have been a tough position). Really, no matter how he would have dealt with it, he was screwed from the start. Shameful behaviour on the part of those parents and other Canadians, really. But how is it fair to the principal to put him in such a bind? Certainly a principal must have decision-making authority to be able to do his job. Add to that that considering that many schools in Canada already don't sing the national Anthem anyway, why aren't those Canadian terrorists terrorizing other schools too and picking on him alone, considering that his school had already been singing the Anthem more than most schools in the country anyway. That might also be why he'd never expected such a Taliban-style attack from so many Canadians.

I don't know, but he said many. So I take it it's more than one or two. To be fair to him though, if it's in his mandate to do whatever he can within the rules to create an inclusive environment for all children, and there is no official rule saying that the children must sing the Anthem every morning in the classroom (meaning he was going above and beyond the call of duty already), then according to the rules he'd be expected to follow, it would make sense that he should bring the Anthem out of the classroom into the Assemblies. Had he not done so, and assuming he were dealing with JWs (which I'm guessing was the case by the sound of it), they'd likely have fought it in court and won on the grounds that no law required the Anthem in the classrooms in the first place, thus costing the taxpayer more money. So for you to say his decision was stupid is essentially putting him in a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. Not very fair. And to excuse death threats isn't too responsible either.

He claimed to have received over 1000 e-mails, many insults and many trheats among them. That's ot a small number directed at just one target.

Harper may be a big C Conservative, but he's certainly not a small C conservative. If anything, he's a small l liberal. He's liberally insulting and vicious. Now what we need are independent small c candidates to run in elections like Arthur did. We need more independents like Arthus to replace the CPC. In fact, I'd be a strong supporter of a movement of independent small c conservative candidates without a party, just forming a a co-alition with whoever is in the House instead.

My guess is, we'll choose the latter and repeat the whole cycle again unfortunately.

Rising interest rates aren't healthy either as that simply increases the debt burden and thus starting the whole cycle towards the next recession all over again. Instead, if governments could be pro-active in adopting effective policies to increase government revenue and decrease government sepnding as soon as inflation kicks in, no matter how low, this would keep interest rates, inflation, and the debt down simultaneously while preventing labour shortages from occuring all at the same time. Of course there are two potential prices to pay for this: 1. Possible increases to taxes, fines, fees, or other source of revenue, and/or 2. Reductions in government spending. If the threat is great, either the revenue increase, the spending reduction, or both, may have to be steep. However, I believe it would be a small price to pay to smoothen out future booms and busts in the economic cycle. The question is, will we have the political will to do this, or will we rather just let inflation, interest rates, debt, and/or labour shortages to go up to just repeat the cycle again in a few years or decades facing a deep recession anew.

The principal himself claimed to have received well over a thousand e-mails, many of which had threatened his safety. That's not a bad (or should I say 'good'?) showing for one single e-mail campaign.

Of course. Deflation is just as harmful as inflation, so as long as we're in deflation, inflationary policies would be beneficial for the economy. What i'm saying though is that as soon as we go back into inflation and interest rates, no matter how low the rates, we need to then switch to an anti-inflation and anti-high-interest-rate policy, in anticipation of higher inflation and interest rates to come if we don't act swiftly.

I'm not saying anything wrong with the Anthem per se (though I do know some Christian sects that consider it idolatry and what not), but simply pointing out the irony that the very people defending it on the grounds of patriotism are showing themselve to be the lest patriotic by spewing forth Taliban-like death threats, totally defying the intended spirit of the very Anthem they're trying to defend, making it pointless anyway.

This school did have daily singing until a few parents complained for religious reasons, after which it was transfered from the classroom to the Assembly meetings so as to accommodate those parents. But even then, it's not like the Anthem was banned, it was just a changing of the policy. But death threats? That defies the original spirit and purpose of singing the anthem (i.e. to serve as a reminder of our love for our people and country) anyway, doesn't it?

Good point. I sang it only in school assemblies when I was in elementary school. But the point I was making is that parents accusing this principal of being unpatriotic were proving themselves to be even less so by acting like the very Taliban we're fighting. Seriously, which is less patriotic between making minor changes to the singing of the anthem in school vs. uttering death threats? Hmmm... irony?

No, the definition of inflation is an increase in overall prices. Not necessarily. Let's suppose that Canada's currency should drop in value in relation to one other country's, but that many other countries' currencies should drop in value in relation to the Canadian at the same time? Or let's suppose that Canada's currency should drop in value in relation to another country's, but that country's own currency is suffering from severe deflation, meaning that in fact it wouldn't be our currency dropping to its, but rather its rising to ours. Many variables are at stake here, so no, a relative devaluation of the currency vis a vis another is no guarantee of inflation. It may or may not cause it, but it's not a direct relation. There are two points that can guarantee an increase in inflation, or at least a slow down in deflation: 1. An increase in the money supply in relation to all goods and services produced in the country., or 2. An acceleration of the money supply in the economy in relation to all the products and services produced in the country. This is an important relationsip too, because with high unemployment, we are in fact producing less, and so even without stimulous spending, we'd be risking inflation, just because of the shrinkage in overall production in relation to the money supply. Add stimulous spending to that, and now we have a double whammy, with more money in the system, and less production. The only reason there's no inflation right now is owing to the other factor mentioned above (people aren't spending, and so the money's circulating much more slowly than before). But the fact that the money is out there, combined with a drop in productivity, makes the economy very vulnerable to inflation. All it will take is for all that money to start circulaing more quickly again, with more money than before competing for fewer products and services than before, leading to an upward movement of prices owing to supply and demand. Again, not necessarily. Let's suppose the US government incresed taxes sharply, reduced spending sharply, and destroyed the surplus money. That would push the value of the US dollar up in the US itself, causing high deflation, resulting in the US dollar rising relative to the Canadian, and thus by definition a devaluation of the Canadian dollar, but not owing to more production of money on Canada's part, but rather through destruction of money on the US side, meaning that we'd have devaluation unaccompanied by inflation, since the money available in the Canadian market in Canadian dollars would remain unchanged. No, that's not the definition of inflation. As I said before, devaluation and deflation are two separate things. Now, if Canada should print tons of money, that would cause inflatin and devaluation simultaneously, so yes, sometimes they can go hand in hand. But as mentioned above, not necessarily. Let's take another example. Let's suppose Canada shouls start printing lots of money, but the US decides to print even more in relation to its GDP. In such a situation. we might face inflation and yet a rise in the value of the Candian relative to the US dollar. There are many sources of unemployment. We have demand-deficient unemployment cause by de-inflation, deflation, or other source of a drop in demand for a product or service in the economy. Then we have various forms of structural unemployment, such as: Skill-deficient unemployment, where one simply doesn't have the skills for the jobs available in the market. Geographical unemployment, where the jobs and the unemployed are not in the same local community. etc. While I agree with combating deflation as a means of combating demand-deficient unemployment, I oppose inflating our way out of recession since that doesn't work. We can inflate our way all we want, but if the workers are not where they're needed, or don't have the skills the market demands of them, there is still no guarantee they'll find work. Each form of unemployment needs to be dealt with differently. Demand-deficient unemployment is the only form that actually increases in a recession and disappears in times of increased demand. Other forms of unemployment can exist even at the hight of an economic boom, and must be dealt with differently. No stimulous will help them. Skill-deficient unemployment must be combated through trades or professional education or training. Geographical unemployment can be removed by removing red tape (such as having different governments recognizing each other's professional deplomas, etc., or countries signing free labour-movement agreements so that workers can cross borders to go where the jobs are, etc.). Stimulous spending works to fight demand-deficient unemployment, but does nothing to help other forms of unemployment.

The Canadian national anthem, we would think, should be a symbol of Canada's patriotism, of our love for our country and, by implication, for our fellow Canadians. Not so, it would seem: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/sto...25.html?ref=rss According to this article, many Canadians believe that no longer enforcing a daily singing of the Canadian national anthem is worthy of death! This principle, dealing with a multicultural and multi-Faith school, having been requested by some parents to exempt their children from the daily singing the National Anthem, had transfered the Anthem from the classroom to Assemblies so as to make it easier to exempt the concerned students. As a result, according to his testimony on the CBC's the National this evening, he'd received thousands of e-mails calling him a traitor, and even received many death threats. This is just incredible. Have those parents never considered what it means to be a Canadian? Are they defending the anthem blindly with no understanding of what it santds for? We're in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban against the same kind of fanatical mentality, and yet these same parents will use that war as a pretext to import that same mentality on our shores and threaten the life of a principle for changing his policy on the national anthem? Has Canada really swong that far to the nationalistic right as that many Caandians would really wish the death of an elementary school principal just trying to include certain students in the school environnment? This is really scary news. We don't need the Taliban's mentality on our shores, thank you very much.

I'd like to add to this that we should start planning for the next recession as soon as we're out of this one. Surre we won't implement it until deflation hits again, but at least it will be there waiting to be implemented as soon as deflation hits. The same applies with inflation. We should be planning against inflation now while in recession, while our heads are still calm and rational, rather than in a last minute panic as we had done with the recession.

Sure, right now. But I think what we're all getting at is that we don't want to see a repeat of the lack of pre-recession planning. Just as we should have had a counter-recessionary plan before the recession hit, ready to implement it as soon as deflation hit, so we should be planning a counter-inflation strategy while we're in deflation, ready to be implemented as soon as we're back in inflation again, not starting to plan it once it's already there. We need to be more pro-active in these things. Once we're back in inflation is not the time to start planning, but the time to implement the plan. Now granted we don't know how long the deflation will continue, and as long as it does, we should continue with whatever stimulous we should have had in plan prior to it. But we should still have a plan, ready to be implemented whenever inflatin comes back, whether nest month, next quarter, or next year.

There's a difference though. Governments have also pumped large quantities of stimulous spending worldwide during this recession. While that's fine, and perhaps even necessary, in times of deflationary recession, as now, it also means that once the economy recovers, all that stimulous money is still floating around, money that wasn't there before the recession. So now not only is the money that was there before just waiting to be circulated again, but that will be on top of all the stimulous money too, a problem we didn't have before the recession. Like I said, in a recession, it's not so bad, and maybe even encessary. But after the recession, we need to rake all that excess cash back up again. In fact, I just found this on the CBC website suggesting that some countries are starting to prlan for this very problem. I hope Canada is among them: http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/07/20/f...k-round-up.html

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/07/24/a...mily072409.html

Last quarter we recorded deflation in the economy. Now certainly is not the time to worry about labour shortages, inflation, high interest rates, and growing government debt, but rather deflation. This, however, is precisely the time when the government should be looking ahead and drawing up a detailed global and long-term counter-inflation policy. Of course we would not expect the government to implement the strategy while we're in a state of deflation, but it is the time to plan for it, while we're not in any state of panic, thus allowing us to plan it in a calm and rational manner. We may be out of deflation by next month, or maybe next quarter, or maybe later still. But whenever it comes, we should be ready for it now. This I think is the error that the government for this recession. Since we were not in recession, the government chose to lazy about and not do its job and look tothe possibilities. It should have at lesat considered the possibility of recession, unemployment, and deflation and have a rational plan of attack, not the multi-billion dollar knee-jerk reaction it exhibited owing to lack of preparation. I hope the government wont' repeat this mistake for the upcoming boom, and just as it should have planned for the recession before the recession, so it should be planning for the boom before the boom. But alas, I doubt they can see that far.

Yes we did, and that's a good reason to either increase spending, decrease revenue, lower interest rates, or some combination of these. The bad news though is that recession is followed by the threat of inflation and labour shortages later on. We're now officially out of recession, which means we could be back into inflation within the next month. While increased spending might be justifiable right now, it could only be a temporary increase because probably by next month, the government will have to start cutting spending and possibly even have to consider increasing revenue too in order to pre-emptively thwart labour shortages, inflation, rising interest rates, and rising government debt coming some time within the next year. Maybe next month, maybe next quarter, maybe next year. But the government can only sustain increased spending as long as we're in a deflation mode. Once we're back in inflation, it'll be time to pre-empt it before it suddenly shoots up. If we consider how much stimulous spending we and other countires put into the economy over the recession, then we also need to consider that we'll need to take that money back out of the economy at the end of the recession otherwise the threat of an overheated economy will be a real one.